“They want to see the American system in chaos, they want to see that we’re unable to perform our basic functions,” said Shalanda Young, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Time is running out for Republicans and Democrats in Congress to reach an agreement to raise the debt ceiling, failing which the country could default on its debts for the first time in its history.
Washington’s failure to pay its debts would lead to major economic turmoil in the United States and around the world.
Young said this is a test to see which system performs better globally between American democracy and the Chinese method.
US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haynes warned on Thursday that China and Russia were trying to promote that the US system is flawed.
And Hynes, during a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, expressed his belief that Russia and China will seek to portray the case through media campaigns as “evidence of chaos in the United States.”
Hynes said any default would “almost certainly” create “global uncertainty about the value of the dollar and about American institutions and leaders.”
The White House had earlier warned that failure to pay US debts would hurt local and global financial markets, and negatively affect businesses and workers in the country.
“The White House has said the crisis will cost the US economy hundreds of thousands of jobs and slow growth in the world’s largest economy.”
The White House has urged the U.S. House of Representatives to work together to reach an agreement to raise the debt ceiling that spares the United States the repercussions of a default on its debt.
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